I, the Villain, Become Invincible the More Descendants I Have

Chapter 74 The Illusory Voice of Ten Thousand Buddhas”Master! Help! That devil Emperor Cao Xukun is too powerful! My Duer Grand Formation was broken by a single punch from him, and my Nine-Ringed Monk Staff was stolen by him too! He even declared he would trample the Great Leiyin Temple, tear down the Tathagata Buddha statue, and throw all the monks in our temple to feed the camels!”

The prayer beads in Abbot Xuan Ci’s hands paused abruptly, and the compassionate smile on his face instantly froze.

He was over eight hundred years old this year, having cultivated to the mid-stage of the Void-Piercing Realm by sucking the blood and sweat of the people of the Western Desert. He usually sat high and aloof, worshipped by the commoners as a living Bodhisattva.

Now that he heard Emperor Cao Xukun was coming to strike, he was panicked inside, but on the surface, he still pretended to be calm and indifferent.

”What is there to panic about!” Abbot Xuan Ci snorted coldly, stroking his snow-white beard with an air of pretentiousness. ”My Great Leiyin Temple is a thousand-year-old ancient temple, protected by the Buddha. What kind of waves can a mere devil from the mortal world stir up? Emperor Cao Xukun has killed too much and has long since incurred the wrath of heaven and resentment of the people; the Buddha will surely punish him!”

”But Master, Emperor Cao Xukun is truly powerful!” Saintly Monk Jin Chanzi said with a mournful face. ”He shattered the Arhat Golden Body with a single punch; even the Duer Grand Formation personally transmitted by the Buddha couldn’t stop him! If we fight him head-on, we will definitely lose!”

”Fool!” Abbot Xuan Ci glared at him. ”Who said we were going to fight him head-on? Pass down my decree: summon all three thousand monks in the temple and immediately set up the Ten Thousand Buddhas Homage Array outside the temple! This array is the number one killing formation of our Buddhist sect, containing one hundred and eight thousand Buddha shadows. It can draw upon the power of the Western Heaven Buddha, and even if a Fusion-stage cultivator comes, they would have to drink hatred on the spot!”

”The Ten Thousand Buddhas Homage Array?!” Saintly Monk Jin Chanzi’s eyes lit up, and he instantly perked up. ”That’s right! How could I have forgotten this great array! With this array here, Emperor Cao Xukun will definitely die! Master, you are too amazing!”

”That goes without saying.” Abbot Xuan Ci lifted his chin proudly, though he muttered to himself: Fortunately, the founding master left behind this trump card of an array, otherwise we would really be finished this time. Emperor Cao Xukun, oh Emperor Cao Xukun, you dare to cut off my Buddhist sect’s financial path, I will make sure you never return!

Once the order was given, the entire Great Leiyin Temple instantly sprang into action. Three thousand monks, holding monk staffs and wearing kasayas, quickly set up the formation on the open ground outside the temple.

In less than half a day, a massive Ten Thousand Buddhas Homage Array rose from the ground. The array covered a radius of a hundred miles, completely enveloped in golden Buddha light. The array was engraved with Buddhist runes, and one hundred and eight thousand Buddha statue shadows floated in mid-air. The sound of chanting was deafening, and looking from afar, it was as if the Western Heaven Buddha Kingdom had descended.

Abbot Xuan Ci held a purple-gold alms bowl and stood under the Tathagata Buddha statue in the center of the array. Saintly Monk Jin Chanzi stood beside him, holding a makeshift wooden staff. The two sang in harmony, shouting to the people of the Western Desert:

”Benefactors! Emperor Cao Xukun is a devil from hell, now intending to attack our Great Leiyin Temple and blaspheme the Buddha! If he succeeds, the Western Desert will never have peace, and everyone will go to hell!”

”Everyone, pick up your weapons and join us to defend the Buddha! Defend the Buddhist sect! All those who participate in the battle will ascend directly to the Western Heaven Paradise after death and enjoy eternal peace!”

The people of the Western Desert, who had been fooled their entire lives, had no idea of the trickery involved. One by one, holding hoes and sickles, they spontaneously ran to the periphery of the array to help the monks defend. In just one day, over a hundred thousand people gathered outside the array, creating a massive momentum.

When the news reached Emperor Cao Xukun’s army, Li Tieniu slammed the table in anger: ”Damn it! These bald donkeys really know how to play! When they can’t win, they use the commoners as human shields; they are truly shameless to the extreme! This is simply a large-scale scene of moral kidnapping!”

”As expected.” Emperor Cao Xukun rode on the back of a white elephant, leisurely gnawing on a cantaloupe. ”These monks have no other skills, but they are experts at fooling people. They think that by hiding behind the commoners, I won’t dare to make a move? Too naive.”

”But Emperor Xuan, that Ten Thousand Buddhas Homage Array looks quite sinister!” Li Tieniu scratched his head. ”I heard this array is the number one killing formation of the Buddhist sect and can draw upon the power of the Western Heaven Buddha. With one hundred and eight thousand Buddha shadows attacking together, can we really win?”

”Can we win?” Emperor Cao Xukun sneered, tossing the melon rind away. ”Look at these people of the Western Desert, each one sallow and thin, barely clothed, and then look at the Great Leiyin Temple: floors paved with gold bricks, walls made of white jade, and the monks eating delicacies and wearing gold and silver at every meal. If their Buddha were truly efficacious, why wouldn’t it protect these commoners so they could eat their fill and dress warmly, instead protecting this group of blood-sucking parasites?”

”The so-called Ten Thousand Buddhas Homage Array is nothing more than a flashy display built with the incense money of the commoners. What Western Heaven Buddha power, what Buddha’s protection—it’s all deceitful nonsense. Today I will break this broken array and let the people of the Western Desert see what exactly the Buddha they have worshipped their whole lives is.”

Three days later, Emperor Cao Xukun led an army of two hundred thousand, grandly arriving outside the Great Leiyin Temple.

Looking from afar, the Ten Thousand Buddhas Homage Array’s golden light shot into the sky. The one hundred and eight thousand Buddha statue shadows glared with wide eyes, and the chanting sounded like thunder, making the ground tremble slightly. Over a hundred thousand commoners held farm tools, standing at the outermost perimeter of the array, each with a firm gaze, as if they were truly defending something sacred.

Abbot Xuan Ci saw Emperor Cao Xukun’s army and revealed a proud smile on his face. He channeled his Buddhist supernatural powers, and his voice spread throughout the entire field: ”Devil Emperor Cao Xukun! You have trespassed into the holy land of the Buddhist sect and blasphemed the Buddha; you deserve to die! Today, I have set up the Ten Thousand Buddhas Homage Array to act on behalf of Heaven! If you are willing to cripple your own cultivation and kneel before the Buddha to repent for three hundred years, this poor monk might spare your dog life! Otherwise, I will surely make your soul scatter and perish, never to be reincarnated!”

Saintly Monk Jin Chanzi also followed suit, acting under the protection of another’s power, pointing at Emperor Cao Xukun and cursing: ”Emperor Cao Xukun! You stole my staff and broke my array; today my Master will surely avenge me! Just wait to be torn to pieces by the ten thousand Buddhas!”

”Hahaha! You’re killing me!” Emperor Cao Xukun laughed up at the sky, laughing so hard he swayed back and forth. ”Old bald donkey Abbot Xuan Ci, you still have the nerve to mention the Buddha? You embezzle incense money, occupy the commoners’ land, and enslave the people to build temples for you. The dirty things you’ve done are even more shameless than bandits!”

”The compassion in your mouth is just making the commoners donate money to you while they starve; the paradise in your mouth is just you living in a luxurious temple, eating delicacies, while the commoners outside starve and freeze to death! A bloodsucker like you wearing a kasaya, are you worthy of talking about Buddhism? Are you worthy of representing the Buddha?”

”And you, Saintly Monk Jin Chanzi.” Emperor Cao Xukun turned his head to look at Saintly Monk Jin Chanzi, his gaze disdainful. ”You were beaten by me and fled back like a stray dog, and now you’re hiding behind that old bald donkey making threats—don’t you feel ashamed? If you have the ability, come over here, let’s have another one-on-one fight, and I’ll give you one hand.”

”You... you’re talking nonsense!” Abbot Xuan Ci was trembling with anger, his face livid. ”A pack of lies! You are slandering the Buddhist sect! Slandering the Buddha!”

”Whether I am slandering or not, everyone knows in their hearts.” Emperor Cao Xukun raised his hand and pointed at the commoners outside the array, his voice resonant and forceful. ”Fathers and fellow villagers of the Western Desert! Think carefully: you have donated incense money to the Great Leiyin Temple for your entire lives, what have you received? Your children starved to death; did the Buddha save you? Your houses were washed away by floods; did the Buddha help you?”

”No! Never! The money you donated all went into the pockets of these monks! They use your blood and sweat money to build magnificent temples, buy priceless jewelry, take beautiful concubines, and live a life like immortals! While you, you can only eat grass roots and tree bark, living a life worse than pigs and dogs!”

These words were like a thunderclap, exploding in the ears of all the commoners.

The crowd instantly became agitated; everyone looked at each other, their eyes filled with doubt.

”That’s right! My father died of illness; I donated ten taels of silver to beg for the Buddha’s protection, but in the end, he still wasn’t saved!”

”My family’s land was stolen by the temple; when I went to reason with them, I was even beaten up!”

”So we have been fooled all along!”

Abbot Xuan Ci saw the situation was turning bad and hurriedly shouted sternly: ”Everyone, don’t listen to his nonsense! He is a devil; he is bewitching people’s hearts! Ten Thousand Buddhas Homage Array, activate! Kill this devil for me!”

Following his order, the entire array instantly began to operate. The one hundred and eight thousand Buddha statue shadows moved simultaneously, holding weapons, and rushed toward Emperor Cao Xukun’s army. The golden Buddha light transformed into countless sharp blades, covering the sky and the sun, as if intending to swallow the entire world.

”Right on time!”

Emperor Cao Xukun flipped and jumped off the white elephant, holding the chaos divine spear, and walked slowly toward the array. His black dragon robe fluttered without wind, and the pressure of the late-stage Void-Piercing Realm erupted with a boom, instantly suppressing the sky-filling Buddha light until it dimmed by a few shades.

”Today, I will break your Ten Thousand Buddhas Homage Array and tear down your deceitful Leiyin Temple! I will let all the commoners see just how vulnerable you fake Buddhas really are!”